My buddy has an '80 turbo T/A. He inherited from his late grandfather and has restored it realy well..long story short..it sat for many years and the cooling passage ways are plagued with rust and she cannot regulate her tempurature...overheating...bad. What can be done about this? This car has so much invested into it and it would be a shame to hit such a catastrofic wall. A replacement motor would alomst be imposable to find as the 301 only came in these few cars in 80 and 81...plz help

 

I don't think it'd have enough rust to block the coolant passages in the block, probably another problem.

Check the t-stat, rad, hoses, etc....

Otherwise, there was a very recent thread about this.... try searching a bit.
I also remember *someone* who showed they used an oil filter in the cooling line, in order to trap particles... Then I think flushed it a few time with a rust dissolver of some kind as well.... After a few weeks removed the filtration system, as it had cleaned it all out.

 

There is good news,
There are alot of option available for this. However, people will dispute about which one is best. Instead of telling you which is best so people can get all bent out of shape. Let me tell you what I had luck with.
First off you need to know what rust is.
Corrosion right? Oxidation concentrated cell corrosion, formed by introducing the electrolyte to the cathode and anode of the iron block.
Confused? Good. Basically, you need to neutralize the corrosion. When you do, it will progress at a slower rate. corossion always happens, you can not stop it. That gold diamond ring you bought your wife for her engagement? Guess what? Yep, it is slowly corroding too. Only 100% pure metal will not corrode. Since there is no such metal on this earth, everything corrodes.

so... what can you do? First off, you want to neutralize the "rust", by the PH scale it is slightly acidic. so i would recommend a solution of distilled water and sodium bicarbonate. (baking soda) run it for a while. Heating up the sodium bicarbinate will not change the chemical properties like usually disputed. If that was so, people would never cook with it.
Also do not confuse the "sodium" with salt which is "sodium chloride" sodium is just a type of metal.
so anyways, sodium bicarbonate is a base on the PH scale. i believe it is a 9. The scale ranges from 0-14. 0 beinig most acidic, 7 being neutral, and 14 being a base.
After running the sodium bicarbinate you will notice alot of stuff in your next flush. That means it worked, however, do not keep using the baking soda because if you neutralize the rust and keep using a base, a base will corrode metal just as much as an acid. The goal is neutral. After the flush besure to use distilled or deionized water. those types of water have no radical ions floating around which will serve as the electrolyte leg of the corrosion triangle.

Moral of the story.... neutralize the problem, and keep it that way.
sodium bicarbonate,
then whichever coolant you perfer with distilled or deionized water.

 

I like the sodiumbicarb idea... something else I wanted to throw out there..... I was talking to someone else about this and, although he doesnt know much about cars, he says that vinigar is a household remedy for rust removal...silverware and such.... Has anyone ever used this application for rust removal in an engine block??

 

Will vinegar work? yes and no.
Vinegar is a 2 on the PH scale. It is just below sufuric acid. Remember when i said too much of either side is bad? Too acidic it will corrode, too much of a base it will corrode.
If you look up something like CLR which was made to remove calcium, lime, and rust. the solution uses 5 % vinegar. The problem is rust by nature, is just iron trying to go back to its natural state. Rust can be either acidic or a base.. It all depends on what forced it to corrode,
If you have a piece of metal that was corroding from salt water, which is a base. You would use an acid.
but typically, the waters, solutions, and things that were put into our coolant passages over the years are acidic.
so sodium bicarbonate would be the appropriate choice.
i hope this helps